page_title: Dortmund
section_title: City government past and present
hierarchical_section_title: Dortmund / Politics / City government past and present
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Stadtwappen der kreisfreien Stadt Dortmund English: Coat of arms of the city of Dortmund
context_page_description: Dortmund is with a population of 603,609 inhabitants as of 2020, the third-largest city of Germany's most populous federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia and Germany's eighth-largest city. It is the largest city of the Ruhr, Germany's largest urban area with some 5.1 million inhabitants, as well as the largest city of Westphalia. On the Emscher and Ruhr rivers, it lies in the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Region and is considered the administrative, commercial, and cultural centre of the eastern Ruhr. Dortmund is the second largest city in the Low German dialect area after Hamburg.
  Founded around 882, Dortmund became an Imperial Free City. Throughout the 13th to 14th centuries, it was the "chief city" of the Rhine, Westphalia, and the Netherlands Circle of the Hanseatic League. During the Thirty Years' War, the city was destroyed and decreased in significance until the onset of industrialization. The city then became one of Germany's most important coal, steel and beer centres. Dortmund consequently was one of the most heavily bombed cities in Germany during World War II. The devastating bombing raids of 12 March 1945 destroyed 98% of buildings in the inner city center.
context_section_description: Dortmund is one of nineteen independent district-free cities (kreisfreie Städte) in North Rhine-Westphalia, which means that it does not form part of another general-purpose local government entity, in this case it is not part of a Landkreis. Since 1975, Dortmund is divided into twelve administrative districts. Each district (Bezirk) has its own elected district council (Bezirksvertretung) and its own district mayor (Bezirksbürgermeister). The district councils are advisory only.
  Dortmund is often called the Herzkammer der SPD (roughly translated as "heartland of the Social democrats"), which is the politically dominant party in the city. During the Nazi era (1933–1945), mayors were installed by the Nazi Party. After World War II, the military government of the British occupation zone installed a new mayor and a municipal constitution modeled on that of British cities. The first major elected by the population of Dortmund was Fritz Henßler. Since the end of the war, the SPD has held a relative majority in the town council - except from 1999 to 2004. Since the 2012 local election, there have been 8 parties and electors' groups in the town council (86 seats; 2009: 96 seats): Ullrich Sierau (SPD) has been the mayor of Dortmund since May 2010. He has had to work with changing majorities in the local council.
  The last municipal election was held on 25 May 2014. The SPD reached 38.2% (36 seats), CDU 27.2% (26 seats), die Grünen 15.4% (15 seats), Die Linke 6.8% (6 seats), the AfD 3.4% (3 seats), the FDP 2.4% (2 seats), Piraten 2.3% (2 seats), Die Rechte 1.0% (1 seat), the Bürgerliste für Dortmund 1.0% (1 seat), the NPD 0.9% (1 seat) und the Freie Bürger-Initiative 0.7% (1 seats).
caption: Dortmund coat of arms
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